Re: Re: Re: Krugman attacks the EPI! (fwd)

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> >I think that it's unfair to dub PK a practitioner of "free market dogma,"
> >since he's a technocratic type.

Mine writes:
> Unfairness? I am not quite sure. Almost all the technocrats I am aware
> of  are "closet" free marketeers, either preaching "state regulated
> capitalism" to make sure market works or openly admitting the inherent
> justness of the market ("market is good but elites politicize it"
> rhetoric). Both types are capitalists. They are just differently
> capitalist.  i don't think a technocrat would have a problem with free
> market in so far as elites intervene to secure capitalism.

It's unfair simply in the sense that it's better to know more about people
before applying labels to them.

It's hard to tell, but I think we agree: most technocrats believe that "the
market" needs the helping hand of government to move toward being the "true
free market." Most of them don't say that the market is "just." Rather,
they'd probably say that notions of justice are vague and therefore weak. I
wouldn't say they were "capitalists" as much as pro-capitalist.
(Capitalists own significant amounts of capital, I would say enough to be
independently wealthy.)

I'm no fan of technocrats and see no reason to prefer the state-managed
capitalism of Japan or South Korea as superior to the more free-market
version of the US. Technocrats in power in a post-capitalist country can
also set themselves up as a new ruling class, as in the old USSR.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine